My Lady's Choosing

by Kitty Curran

  “But why did you reveal yourself now?” you ask. “What happened?”

  Constantina again throws back her head and laughs coldly. “What happened? What happened is you arrived.”

  Mac squeezes your shoulder, and you see him tighten his grip on his dirk. Ollie, meanwhile, stares at Constantina in silent horror, his eyes like those of a man who knows he is about to drown. If she notices, Constantina doesn’t show it.

  “I realized that when clearing out the orphanage. Anyone might come across Abercrombie’s papers. I always suspected the old fool had kept something as a safeguard, in case he needed to name names in order to save his neck.”

  “And you couldn’t allow that to happen,” you say. Constantina’s eyes light up with righteous fury.

  “Of course not! I had to keep myself safe. I needed the evidence destroyed, and you out of the way, so I set the place on fire!”

  Mac gasps and starts forward, but you place a hand on his chest. He looks at you, quizzical, and you shake your head.

  “I thought that I was finally free,” Constantina continues. “So I decided to use the opportunity to get out of London. But then I saw that you had that wretched paper incriminating me. And Abercrombie, that fool, had managed to save the chest with the rest in it. So, you see, I had to follow you and make sure you never found out…” She turns to you, her face blazing with hate. “Or make sure you were silenced if you did.”

  “I loved you!” Ollie cries, finally finding his voice.

  “I loved you, too…in my way,” Constantina says. “We can still be together, as one. Let us kill these two and escape!”

  “Never!” Ollie hisses. Constantina starts for a second, nothing more. Then her eyes flash eerily cold, and a deadly smile twitches at the corner of her mouth.

  “Then you shall die.”

  Seriously, cripes.

  Do you try to defeat the evil spy lady? If so, turn to this page.

  Or do you hold back? Ollie, unlike you, is a trained spy, and he can probably handle himself. If so, turn to this page.

  “Fighting is useless, chérie.” Fabien regards you fiercely, yet gently, with an intensity that both shocks and arouses you.

  The bustling city of Cairo is far behind and the sky darkening to night before Fabien lets go of your mouth. You scream, of course, but no one but he and his associated brigands are within earshot. One of them disembarks from his camel, carrying heavy ropes with which to bind you.

  Fabien manages to swing you down from the camel with surprising ease and unstudied grace for one so powerful, while remaining seated upon his dromedary steed.

  “Fighting is useless, chérie.” He regards you fiercely, yet gently, with an intensity that both shocks and arouses you. With a rumbling chuckle, he dismounts. “We will not harm you, for we are only here to deliver you to the lady who has paid us.”

  “And the lady? What does she want with me?!” you pant. Fabien’s Nile-green eyes flicker, if only for an instant.

  “Who can say?” he says with a nonchalant shrug. You trust him not one Egyptian royal cubit.

  Instead, you try to take in your surroundings and formulate a plan. Dazed and disoriented, you are unsure you know the way back to Cairo, and even less sure you would survive the journey. Still, would death be any worse than what you fear this band has planned for you?

  If death would be no worse, and you wish to fight the brigands immediately, turn to this page.

  If in fact, now that you think on it, death would probably be worse, and you wish to focus on not being dead for the time being, turn to this page.

  You stagger through the house, drunk with moonlight, your thoughts racing. You must find Lord Craven. Feelings be damned, you must know what the hell is going on in this house. It is not long before you crash headlong into the object of your thoughts just outside his bedchamber.

  You immediately fall into a rush of desperate kisses, each deeper than the last. Your entire body thrills to his touch, but that will have to wait.

  “Easy, man!” you cry. “I believe I have just seen your dead wife! Do you think me mad?”

  Craven drops to his knees, a sign of dramatic relief. “I have seen her, too,” he answers, raking his hands through his mane of hair, wildly stoking your desire as he does. “I thought it was just me. I thought I was losing my mind.”

  “The specter…” you speak slowly. “She has haunted you before?”

  “Yes,” Craven chokes out, close to breaking into a sob or feeling the tender joy of sexual release. You really cannot tell with him.

  “There is something very wrong in this house,” you say. You allow Craven to lift your skirts with hungry hands.

  “Yes,” Craven murmurs into the sacred space between your thighs. Your body arches to sate his starvation. Pleasure burns straight up your spine, into your hair, sparking your eyes, roaring so loud in your ears that you almost don’t hear him whisper, “Sometimes I think it will drag me down with it!”

  “It won’t while I’m around,” you say, running your fingers through the silken waves of the dark ocean of his hair. “Tonight, we sleep together…to protect each other!”

  He nods, his mouth worshiping at your hidden temple, and he tumbles you backward into his rooms. He lifts his head from your nethers to take a deep drink of you, his eyes running over every curve of your body. His look is so intense, you gasp. The moment you do, he kisses you so that in essence you are breathing him. He tastes of spice and blood, he smells of fire and forest, and you are so alive with desire that you forget you are a lady. You begin to tear your dress from your body in the forgetting. His limber fingers help you free yourself from any and all constriction, and he takes you there, half clothed, thrusting deeper than any fear could reach, until you are both clawing for more.

  You are close to reaching a transcendent state of being, but then loud banging pierces the euphoria of your ecstasy.

  Bother. Do you stop and investigate, for there is a mystery afoot?! Go to this page.

  Or do you ignore the banging in favor of continuing some other banging? There is probably a logical explanation for the sound, plus this is seriously becoming the most euphoric encounter you’ve ever had. Go to this page.

  “I will travel with you anywhere!” you cry. “Wherever you go, I shall follow! I don’t care about the danger, as long as I am with you!”

  “Oh, my darling!” sighs Evangeline, embracing you deeply. “I don’t know why, but I knew, I always knew that—” She is interrupted by a stifled but loud sob.

  You look up. It takes you a moment to realize that the hard-bitten viragos surrounding you are all sniffling and sighing to a woman. Even the angry Gráinne is somewhat misty-eyed.

  “Oh…oh, just kiss her, you eejit!” she mutters under her breath. You blush and look away, but Evangeline takes charge, her arm still wrapped around your waist.

  “Ladies!” she says. “I have a proposition. I have much coin and am in need of some allies capable of facing the most dangerous woman I have ever met and the good-for-nothings in her employ. You, I fancy, are all more than capable of this work, and you wouldn’t refuse some hefty compensation. So…what do you say? Will you join me in righting the terrible wrongs that have been visited upon those I care about, including this beautiful young woman?”

  The entire tavern roars in approval. Evangeline turns to you and winks.

  “But, my lady!” you whisper. “How will we find where she is? Even most of her henchmen don’t know her whereabouts!”

  Evangeline leans toward you and smiles conspiratorially.

  “Well, my darling, there is one thing that those brutes don’t have.”

  Your eyes widen.

  “The contents of the canister, my dear! We’ve got the location of the lost Temple of Hathor!”

  Turn to this page.

  “STOP! Stop this madness!” You aim Ollie’s pis
tol at the two men. They stop and stare at you.

  “Don’t you see?!” you cry. “Constantina tried to kill Mac because she was trying to hide something! She was walking toward the French not because she was drunk, but on purpose! She was the informant!”

  “But she wasn’t in the chain of command for Mac’s regiment!” shouts Ollie. “How could she have known the things that were handed to the French? Things that even I, in the same spy cell, didn’t know about until years later?!”

  “Because she was passing on information for someone else,” you explain gently, fixing your eyes now on Mac. “From what you both have told me, there is only one person who could be the mole. One who is known very well to you, Mac.”

  Terrible comprehension breaks across the faces of the two men. You nod at them gravely.

  “That is right. Constantina was the conduit, but the information was provided by Abercrombie!”

  Och, man! Turn to this page.

  “I did everything you told me to, my lady. I gave the false diary you wrote to the vicar, so he in turn would give it to the next fool he saw fit to help carry out your plans. I kept your true diary to myself. Of course, I have never touched it—I know this volume must be full of your secret dreams and desires. I have been your faithful Manvers, I have, indeed.”

  You steal a silent step into the morning room. Oblivious to your presence, Manvers is seated before a portrait of Blanche, speaking to it as if she were a woman whose blood flowed warm and lively ‘neath her flesh.

  “Your hatred for Hopesend is clear as a bell,” he goes on. “I hope you love what I have done with the place, my lady. The others…they don’t love you like I love you. They don’t, I swear they don’t! A-ha! A-ha-ha-ha!”

  Your blood chills as Manvers’s cold little laugh fills the night air. You take one step farther, and the moment you do, his head turns, slow and steady, like a wicked eel. Something smells strange suddenly. Something smells wrong.

  “No one loves a child as someone who should have been a father, I say!” Manvers speaks to you with blank eyes. You thrill with fear, and identify the strange scent that has vexed you—smoke.

  “What have you done, Manvers?” you ask, your even voice betraying nothing of your fears. “What have you done?”

  “What I should have done long ago,” he answers with a simple, horrifying smile. “Burn this place to the ground.”

  Uh-oh. Turn to this page.

  “I see that you have something of a rapport with my bastard half brother?” Cad smirks. “It must be very disappointing, to go from having hooked a noble to having designs upon a have-not in the space of just one evening.”

  “I have no hooks and no designs upon your brother,” you say defiantly.

  “Is that so?” murmurs Cad. To your disappointment, your body is roaring at the sinewy length of him pressed against you. “Does dear Benny know that?” You look up to find Benedict staring daggers at you. You stare daggers right back and turn again to Cad.

  “What he thinks is of no matter to me,” you say as primly as you can manage. “For I am more interested in what is about with you…It must have been very gratifying to find yourself the heir to a fortune so suddenly. How did you discover the truth? Was it known to you for long, or have you just found out yourself?”

  “What does that matter?” he whispers, clearly suspicious.

  “Oh, nothing,” you say coquettishly. “I am just interested in what you have to say.”

  Cad moves even closer. You realize, too late, that you might be in over your head.

  “Well, what I say is that I mean to have you!” he hisses. He grabs your wrist and leans in closer still.

  “I would never marry you!” You struggle to escape his grasp.

  “Oh, do not mistake me, sweeting,” he jeers. “I want your honor, not your hand. I have no wish to marry. Bother dear brother Benny for all that, if you have it in you to pine for a stuffed-shirt pauper!”

  He raises the hand not holding your wrist in a vicelike grip and strokes your face. You recoil at his touch, but Cad continues, undeterred.

  “Still, a sweet little chit like you could do worse than to be the kept woman of a man like me. Rich. Well-stationed. Legitimate. So hungry and so satisfying in all ways that matter.”

  Out of the corner of your eye, you see a familiar dark figure stalking purposefully toward you. Benedict’s silver-gray eyes blaze with a mix of outrage and what looks oddly like concern.

  “Cad…” Benedict’s voice is a low warning.

  “Not now, Benny,” Cad sneers. “This lovely young lady and I are having an—AARGH!”

  Suddenly, Cad is doubled over in pain, for you have taken the opportunity of his distraction to inflict deadly damage to his iron-hard manhood with your knee.

  “Oops.”

  Benedict stares openmouthed as you gather your skirts with exaggerated modesty and step around his fallen half brother. You cannot resist turning and raising an eyebrow to that handsome face—the one that causes your foolish loins to ache.

  “Shocked, Sir Benedict?” you say as confidently as possible.

  “No. I’m…impressed.”

  You are startled out of your triumph. This will not do at all. Benedict seems to agree, for his expression turns uncha​racte​risti​cally shaken.

  Never mind that, nor the fact that you would very much like to brush the dark locks off of that beautiful, dumbfounded face. You have work to do. Squaring your shoulders, you stalk primly out of the room…and hear the sound of a young girl sobbing down the corridor.

  You really have no choice here, for intrigue is afoot! Follow those sobs and turn to this page.

  Lady Craven hobbles up the steps of the exquisite London manse belonging to Lady Evangeline Youngblood, her niece. An extremely rich widow, Lady Evangeline is patroness of the Society for the Protection of Widows and Orphans of the War—a position that does a great deal to quell the unkind whispers about her scandalous behavior.

  You have met Lady Evangeline only a few times and were intimidated by her beauty and elegance. Still, you cannot help but like her, for she is warm, witty, and one of the few people who can get Lady Craven to behave herself (as the old witch relies on her for the occasional handout). It is for this reason that you are relieved when she swoops in almost immediately, settles Lady Craven upon a chair, and leads you by the arm around the ballroom.

  “I must say, I’m impressed,” whispers Lady Evangeline, her sapphire eyes flashing with humor and sympathy as you make your escape. “For you have lasted far longer than any of Aunt Aurelia’s other companions. You must have nerves of steel, my dear.”

  You start to protest, but Lady Evangeline shushes you with a hint of a smile playing about her lush pink mouth.

  “Don’t worry, there is no need to be polite. Not one member of this godforsaken family is unaware of my aunt’s, ahem, singular nature. Why, even her son barely speaks to her, and he is certainly someone who does not intimidate easily. Have you met him?”

  “Lord Garraway Craven? Oh, no.” You can feel the heat rising to your face. “But I have heard…rumors. He was an associate of Lord Byron, was he not?”

  Lady Evangeline sniffs her delicate nose and tosses her elegant head. Her artfully arranged curls glimmer golden in the light of the hundreds of candles that decorate the ballroom. “Ah, yes, Garraway certainly was for a time. But that was before he managed to scare off Byron with his, ahem, antics.”

  Lady Evangeline smiles so dazzlingly, you feel you must have imagined the haunted expression that briefly crossed her face. All the same, you dare not inquire further. Instead you listen politely as she steers the subject away from her mysterious cousin.

  “Still, I suppose it’s all for the best. In most families, I would be the black sheep, but compared to the cabal of sinners I’m related to, I look positively respectable!” She winks conspiratorially. “Well, perhaps Benedict
does, too. Though he has his rakish moments.”

  As you walk with her, you become increasingly aware of several pairs of hungry eyes turned in your direction. You can’t say you blame them, for Lady Evangeline is looking even more exquisite than usual this evening, with her blue silk dress the exact shade as her eyes, cut daringly low and clinging to every curve. You look down at your shabby gown and feel even plainer and dowdier by comparison. The only fine thing you own is a simple gold bracelet, a gift from your mother before she died.

  Lady Evangeline seems oblivious to the commotion she is causing among the menfolk of the ton. She turns her piercing gaze to you.

  “My dear, I have a confession to make. You see, I insisted that Aunt Craven bring you to this ball for a reason—” Lady Evangeline stops suddenly as you feel someone bump into you and drench your dress. You look down and see a red river of wine spreading across your ugly yellow frock.

  “Oh, dash it, I’m so terribly sorry!” says a short and nervous-looking young man. “I do hope it isn’t ruined!”

  He looks so frightened and is so bumbling that you take pity on him. “Oh, I assure you that with this dress, that would be quite impossible,” you tell him kindly.

  “Nigel Frickley, you clever dear!” exclaims Lady Evangeline. “I was looking for an excuse to disrobe this lovely young lady.”

  Nigel blushes even more crimson than the wine now staining your dress. “I—um—er…” he stammers before Lady Evangeline cuts him off.

  “You see, the rags my Aunt Craven has passed off on this poor young thing are simply hideous and ought to be replaced at once. Truly, you have performed a public service.”